You\’d find a lot of advice on CV Writing on the internet, one of the popular ones is the use of keywords. Keywords on CVs are important because they are used to describe skills and qualities depending on your role or the industry you work in, so the better your CV matches the keywords in the job description, the higher your CV will rank in the ATS (Application Tracking System).
I have found though that when I\’m screening CVs for roles a lot of people just list the keywords under the skills section, and may be that gets you through the ATS, but it won\’t get you through the hiring manager\’s/recruiter\’s desk. The right thing is to use those keywords to explain your achievements or tasks.
Here\’s an example, if you are a Regional Sales Manager, and you want to apply for a role that requires experience in revenue generation, sales initiatives etc. You can very well list those skills or keywords under your skill section but you are better of using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) or the CAR (Context Action Result) method to reflect your skills using the keywords. One of your points may read \”… grew the regional sales revenue by 34%, resulting in N420M increased profits for year 2018\”.
With a point like that, you have included the keyword \’revenue\’ and also made your CV achievement-based.